My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer 2 1/2 years ago at 43 yrs old. We'd only been together 6 years, married for 2. I was heartbroken by the news. He had chemo and is just coming to the end of his immunotherapy. The cancer is barely there and he is very well, other than getting tired and picking up bugs easier than most. This is obviously brilliant news and I am so grateful the treatments have worked so well for him.
However, for me my whole life has changed. We'd made so many future plans to explore the world and travel, that is now over. I thought I'd found my forever man, someone I was deeply connected with, that is now over. Emotionally we are not a couple anymore, we barely have sex, our conversations are just chit chat, nothing deep and meaningful anymore, he doesn't open up to me about anything. I don't have a husband anymore, i just live with a mate.
He doesn't work anymore, and spends his days pottering about the house and garden doing his own thing, always busy, always doing something but then crashes in the evenings and is asleep on the sofa by 8pm. He forgets things a lot which means I have to take up the slack...but it's OK cos he just forgot!
It's awful but I feel irritated. I go to work every day, I cook tea every night, I do my share of the household chores and I feel like he just gets to do what he wants when he wants.
When I've spoke to him about it he says this is what it's like when you've been with someone a while...what 8 years? He says relationships are just like this. He says he can't open up and talk, I asked him to go to counselling to talk about his life and his cancer, he had a huge trauma in his childhood, he says he's waiting to hear from someone, this is 6 months ago. I don't feel I have a connection with him anymore. He either doesn't know what to do or he doesn't want to. It's like he can't think about anything that involves emotions, but I need that.
I hate feeling this way, I think do I feel this way because of the cancer, the life change or the fact we have no connection. Am I resentful, jealous? Sometimes I want to leave and be back on my own but the upheaval of that fills me with dread and I do love him. I just want him to understand me, talk to me and love me again. I protect myself by shutting down from him, doing my own thing, not saying how I feel, but then i pick at him which I can tell annoys him, but I know why I do it, it's because I feel we are drifting apart, he snaps and I then retreat because I can't be arsed with an argument. He's much more short tempered now and will snap at me easily. It's like his whole attitude has changed, like he doesn't care about stuff anymore, but some of it is stuff I feel he should still care about.
I guess I just wonder if anyone else has been through anything like this...am I just being selfish, I feel bad for feeling this way...
